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PHILADELPHIA - Having solved their Ryan Kesler migraine under new management, the Vancouver Canucks felt on such a roll Saturday that their batch of draft picks included a top-rated American goalie who may need surgery on both hips, a Russian defenceman the size of a Russian bear, and a Canadian blue-liner who was born deaf and didn’t start hockey until age 12.

Yes, you heard me: a Russian.

The Canucks haven’t had one of those play regularly for them since Artem Chubarov parked his Audi at the arena in 2004, went home for the National Hockey League lockout and never returned. The Audi, however, remained a Canuck another year.

It had been so long, we’d forgotten what it was like to interview a young player from Russia. There was the halting English, awkward pauses and an embarrassed grin — and that was just the reporter.

What we saw at the two-day entry draft was sunrise on a new era for the Canucks. Nothing is certain. Everything is possible.

Kesler wants out? Boom, traded to the Anaheim Ducks. And don’t let the dressing room door hit you on the way out.

Too many no-trade clauses among Canuck contracts? Send defenceman Jason Garrison to Tampa Bay for a second-round pick on Friday to generate salary cap space, then use the pick on Saturday to acquire prospect Linden Vey from the Los Angeles Kings.

Including the NHL portion of Anaheim’s payment for Kesler ­— centre Nick Bonino, defenceman Luca Sbisa and agitating forward Derek Dorsett (from the Rangers for the third-round pick the Canucks exchanged with the Ducks) — new general manager Jim Benning turned over 20 per cent of Vancouver’s 20-man lineup in less than 24 hours.

Free agency opens on Canada Day and the Canucks, with the most salary-cap space since the spring of 2008 when Mike Gillis replaced Dave Nonis as GM, have several players targeted. None of them is Mats Sundin.

There will be more new players next fall than the Canucks have had in years.

New Canuck president of hockey operations Trevor Linden predicted a “big week” when he hired coach Willie Desjardins on Monday. He wasn’t kidding.

“When I think about my first day, I walked into that office and thought: Where do I start?” Linden, hired the day after Gillis was fired on April 8, said before travelling home from his first draft. “Each day you kind of put one piece together and identify the direction you want to go.

“I’m thrilled the way we’ve been able to move forward the way we have, especially this week. Hiring a coach, dealing with a difficult situation (Kesler’s trade demand), bringing in players who are excited to be in Vancouver and what that brings to the team, bringing in a new crop of kids … it’s just all really positive. Really positive.”

It was positivity that drove the Kesler trade.

Linden admitted Saturday there was a lively debate within the organization whether to play hardball with Kesler and tell him “see you at training camp” unless the 29-year-old centre with the NTC expanded his trade list beyond two teams.

“There certainly was that debate,” Linden said. “At the end of the day, I felt if we got the pieces we wanted that accomplished the goals that we had, we didn’t want to have a cloud hanging over us and drag this into other people. We have great people in that locker-room. We felt it would be very unfair to our coaching staff, our players and our fans to have this hang over us this summer.

“I thought it was really important for us to make these moves so we can go into July 1 and present a picture to (free agents) we want to talk to, like: ‘This is who we are, this is what we’ve done and this is the direction we’re going.’ It’s clear.”

The Canucks need help at forward, especially with scoring. And they will probably see if they can get a veteran goalie to take some of the workload, possibly the majority of it, off sophomore Eddie Lack.

That goalie may be former Buffalo Sabre Ryan Miller, drafted by Benning and spotted Sunday arriving at YVR. Miller could address the Canucks' immediate needs, but the team better be careful about salary and term for a netminder who turns 34 in July and may be past his best-by date.

Boston College goalie Thatcher Demko, the draft’s top-rated netminder who likely slipped to the Canucks at 36th over concerns about the possibility of maintenance surgery on his hips, is Vancouver’s new goalie of the future. The 18-year-old from San Diego, who could start for Team USA at the next world junior championship, is also Vancouver’s best goaltending prospect since Nonis drafted Cory Schneider from Boston College 10 years ago.

Unable at the time to trade Roberto Luongo, whose saga became a cautionary tale for Linden and Benning, Gillis traded Schneider at last year’s draft in New Jersey.

That deal gave the Canucks a second pick in the first round, just as did the Kesler trade. So with Friday’s selection of forwards Jake Virtanen and Jared McCann added to 2013 first-rounders Bo Horvat and Hunter Shinkaruk, the Canucks have impressively refilled the talent pipeline to their NHL team.

The most immediate payoff from Saturday will be Vey, the 22-year-old forward from Wakaw, Sask., who won the 2011 WHL scoring race in Medicine Hat, where he played for three seasons under Desjardins. On the Stanley Cup-winning Los Angeles Kings, Vey was stuck behind excellent young forwards Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson. He will get the chance to play in Vancouver, where his brother Shaun, a former junior with the Giants, lives.

“Vancouver is such a great hockey city,” Vey said Saturday. “You look at the fans and support you have for them in B.C. I remember going there for a game this year and I actually made a call to my girlfriend and said, ‘You know, one day I’d just love to be part of Vancouver and get a chance to play here.”

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Nothing certain, everything possible for Canucks

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